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Earl Sweatshirt
Thebe Neruda Kgositsile (born February 24, 1994), professionally known as Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter, actor, radio personality, disc jockey, and fasion designer. He is/was a member of The Backpackerz, Odd Future, EarlWolf, Sweaty Martians, DJ Billy Jole, and Hog Slaughta Boyz. Sweatshirt has also hosted the radio show ''Stay Inside'' since July 2016, and founded the fashion company Deathworld in October 2017. Early life Earl Sweatshirt was born Thebe Neruda Kgositsile in Chicago, Illinois, to Cheryl Harris, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Keorapetse Kgositsile, a South African poet and political activist. Harris and Kgositsile separated when Sweatshirt was eight years old. He attended the UCLA Lab School in Los Angeles and New Roads High School and Middle School in Santa Monica. Musical Career 2008–09: Kitchen Cutlery and The Backpackerz Earl Sweatshirt first started rapping in the 8th grade. In 2008, under the name Sly Tendencies, he posted tracks for his mixtape, Kitchen Cutlery, via MySpace. He and two of his friends, Loofy and Jw Mijo, formed a rap trio called The Backpackerz. They were going to release a mixtape titled World Playground but disbanded sometime in 2009. 2009–11: Earl and hiatus in Samoa In 2009, Tyler, The Creator discovered Sly Tendencies via his MySpace account after he reached out to Tyler to tell him he was a fan of his work. Sly later changed his rap name to Earl Sweatshirt and eventually joined Tyler's rap group Odd Future. Sweatshirt and Odd Future have been featured in mainstream magazines such as Spin, Billboard and The Fader. His debut mixtape, Earl, was self-released March 31, 2010 as a free digital download on the Odd Future website. Most of the mixtape was produced by Tyler, The Creator. Earl was named the 24th-best album of 2010 by Complex. Despite positive reactions from both critics and fans, various sources indicated that Sweatshirt had stopped making music with Odd Future. Posts from Tyler, The Creator's Twitter and Formspring accounts seemed to indicate that Sweatshirt's mother would not grant permission to release any of Sweatshirt's music; although after his return, Earl later expressed in an interview that his mother sent him to Samoa due to getting into trouble with friends. Earl attended Coral Reef Academy, a therapeutic retreat school for at-risk boys, located outside of the Samoan capital of Apia. At Coral Reef Academy, Earl worked to earn back privileges, and the opportunity to return home. At the beginning of his enrollment, he was unable to use the bathroom unsupervised. While there, he read Manning Marable's biography on Malcolm X and Richard Fariña’s counterculture fiction. He wrote rhymes, including most of his verse on "Oldie," his only contribution to The OF Tape Vol. 2. Earl was brought back from Samoa by Leila Steinberg, the first manager of Tupac Shakur, who today still manages his career. On December 1, 2011, three formerly unreleased songs by Sweatshirt were released through the OddFutureTalk Odd Future Unreleased mixtape. In December 2011, Sweatshirt was announced as a potential candidate for XXL's 2012 Freshmen List. 2012–13: Return from Samoa and Doris On February 8, 2012, rumours spread around the internet that Sweatshirt had returned to the U.S. when a video of him surfaced on YouTube with a preview of a new song saying if viewers wanted "the full thing" they would have to give him 50,000 followers on Twitter. He also later confirmed on his new Twitter account that he had returned to his home in Los Angeles. Earl appeared on the song "Oldie" from Odd Future's debut album The OF Tape Vol. 2. This was Earl's return to official Odd Future releases and his first appearance on an Odd Future Records release. On March 20, a video released on the official Odd Future YouTube page featured Earl in a cypher-style music video rapping along to his verse from "Oldie" with the other members of the crew. That same day, Earl performed with the group at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on March 20, 2012. On April 9, 2012, rapper Casey Veggies released a mixtape titled Customized Greatly Vol. 3 that included a song featuring Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, The Creator, Domo Genesis, and Hodgy Beats titled "PNCINTLOFWGKTA." During that month Earl Sweatshirt signed on to create his own record label imprint, Tan Cressida, to be distributed through Columbia Records. He turned down several other larger offers due to his priority of remaining close to Odd Future. Earl Sweatshirt was featured on the track "Super Rich Kids" from Frank Ocean's debut album, channel ORANGE, released digitally July 10, 2012. On July 16, Domo Genesis and The Alchemist released the first official single, "Elimination Chamber", from their collaboration album No Idols, which featured Sweatshirt, Vince Staples, and Action Bronson. He was also later featured on the album again on the tracks "Daily News" (also featuring SpaceGhostPurrp and Action Bronson) and "Gamebreaker". On July 23, 2012, Flying Lotus released a song titled "Between Friends" on the Adult Swim Single series which features Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy. Earl Sweatshirt was also featured on Hodgy Beats and Left Brain's second and final studio album as MellowHype, Numbers, on the track "P2". On November 2, 2012, Earl released his first solo single since his return from Samoa, titled "Chum". On November 12, he announced in a tweet that his debut studio album will be titled ''Gnossos'' but later decided against the title. On December 4, 2012, Earl announced that the album will instead be called Doris. That same day the music video for "Chum" was posted on YouTube. Doris was reported early on to feature vocals and/or production from Tyler, The Creator, Frank Ocean, Om'mas Keith, Thundercat, Domo Genesis, Mac Miller, The Neptunes, Christian Rich, Vince Staples, BadBadNotGood, Pharrell Williams, Samiyam, The Alchemist, Casey Veggies, The Internet (Syd and Matt Martians) and RZA. On March 6, 2013, while performing with Flying Lotus and Mac Miller, Earl premiered three new songs off Doris: "Burgundy" produced by Pharrell Williams, "Hive" featuring Casey Veggies and Vince Staples, and "Guild" featuring Mac Miller. Earl also confirmed the next single to be titled "Whoa" featuring Tyler, The Creator. The song was released to iTunes on March 12, 2013, along with the music video being released, which was directed by Tyler. Doris was released on August 20, 2013, under Tan Cressida and Columbia Records. Doris featured guest appearances from Odd Future members Domo Genesis, Frank Ocean, Tyler, The Creator, along with Vince Staples, RZA, Casey Veggies and Mac Miller. Production was primarily handled by Sweatshirt under the pseudonym randomblackdude and production duo Christian Rich. Additional production was provided by Matt Martians, The Neptunes, RZA, Samiyam, BadBadNotGood, Frank Ocean, and Tyler, The Creator. In September 2013, Complex named Sweatshirt the tenth best producer in hip hop. Upon its release, Doris was met with universal critical acclaim from music critics, including perfect scores by The Guardian and Los Angeles Times, which praised Sweatshirt's rhyme schemes and lyrics along with the gritty underground production. The album also fared well commercially debuting at number five on the US Billboard 200 and number one on US Top Rap Albums chart. 2014–15: I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside and Solace On October 10, 2014, Earl confirmed that he had completed the follow-up album to Doris. On November 5, 2014, he released a new song entitled "45" produced by The Alchemist. On February 14, 2015 Earl debuted a new song titled "Quest/Power" via SoundCloud. Earl started performing unreleased tracks since early 2015, such as "Swamp Vermin", "Vultures", "I Be Outside", "Hell", and "Flowers on the Grave". No specific time table is known for the official releases for these songs. On January 5, 2015, Earl released a song titled "silenceDArapgame" with professional skateboarder Na'kel Smith under the moniker Hog Slaughta Boyz. On March 16, 2015, The pre-order for Earl's second studio album, titled: I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside appeared on the iTunes Store, without prior announcement. On March 17, 2015, Earl released a music video, for the song "Grief". The full album was released on March 22, 2015, but only the digital version; the physical version was released later on April 14, 2015. A later music video for the song "Off Top" was released on August 7, 2015. Earl stated in an interview with NPR that his record label gave him no notice they would release the album. He says he considers this his first album because he feels he can "back up everything, the good and the bad". On April 28, 2015, a ten-minute track named ''Solace'' was released via YouTube, and has gained much attention; gaining more than one-hundred thousand views on YouTube in 24 hours. He stated to NPR that he was making an album called "Solace" inspired by his mother, however many believe it is instead an extended play. The project has not been addressed fully. It is widely debated if Earl left Odd Future or not. It seems he has confirmed he has left through his Twitter on May 28, 2015 by saying "No sympathy for male virgins who're in their feelings about Tyler pointing out and solidifying the obvious" after Tyler, The Creator tweeted what everyone thought was the disbandment of Odd Future, although Tyler denies an Odd Future disbandment. Earl did not appear at Camp Flog Gnaw 2015 on November 14, 2015. Many speculated that Tyler, the Creator did not invite Earl to perform at the Carnival because of a feud or conflict between the two. However, Tyler tweeted the day after the carnival "Thebe and I are fine by the way". 2016–present: SRS On January 12, 2016, an Earl Sweatshirt song produced by Samiyam called "Mirror" was leaked. Sweatshirt soon states that it was indeed a leak and not an official release. On January 25, Sweatshirt uploaded three new tracks to his SoundCloud: "Wind in My Sails" produced by The Alchemist, "Bary" and "Skrt Skrt", the latter two of which were produced by Sweatshirt himself. "Wind in My Sails" contains samples from Captain Murphy's song "Children of the Atom" and vocal samples from Gene McDaniels's song "The Parasite (For Buffy)". "Bary" contains vocal samples from Kanye West's song "Barry Bonds". "Skrt Skrt" contains vocal samples from 21 Savage's song "Skrrt Skrrt". On January 27, Kanye West shares an updated track list of his then upcoming album The Life of Pablo that featured Sweatshirt's signature "EARL" above a doodle of Sweatshirt's nose and lips, potentially hinting at a collaboration on the album. This, however, did not happen. On March 2, 2016, Sweatshirt performs a DJ set at Boiler Room in Los Angeles under the alias DJ Earl Fletcher. On March 3, Sweatshirt made a cameo appearance in the music video for "Link Up" by NxWorries (Anderson Paak and Knxwledge). On March 4, Earl was featured on Samiyam's fourth studio album, Animals Have Feelings. The song, "Mirror", was originally meant for I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside. According to Sweatshirt, The song wasn't included because "The tracklist got fucked up". The music video for "Mirror" was released on June 21, 2016. On July 21, 2016, Sweatshirt starred in the second episode of Action Bronson's comedy documentary show Traveling the Stars: Action Bronson and Friends Watch 'Ancient Aliens', titled "Dinosaurs", along with Bronson, Big Body Bes, The Alchemist, Knxwledge, and Schoolboy Q. On August 1, 2016, a instrumental track called "Pelicula" was posted on Apple Music. On August 17, Sweatshirt was featured on Adult Swim Singles Program 2016 on the track "Balance", produced by Knxwledge. On September 4, 2016, a new Earl track called "Death Whistles" was released on Earl's and Knxwledge's radio show on Red Bull Music Academy, produced by King Krule. Krule explained the collaboration in August 2017 by stating: On September 5, Sweatshirt appeared on an episode of record store Amoeba's internet series What's in My Bag? ''with Samiyam and discuss their respective purchases. On September 12, Sweatshirt reunites with Tyler, The Creator at Calgary’s One Love Music Festival and perform "Orange Juice", "Couch", and "Rusty". On September 18, Danny Brown releases his third single to his fourth studio album ''Atrocity Exhibition, titled "Really Doe", which Sweatshirt was featured on with Ab-Soul and Kendrick Lamar. On November 6, 2016, Currensy and The Alchemist release The Carrollton Heist: Remixed, a remix album to their original 2016 collaborative album The Carrollton Heist, and Sweatshirt is credited for producing the track "The Mack Book Remix". On November 13, at Camp Flog Gnaw 2016, Sweatshirt reunites with Tyler, The Creator again, but this time under their previously retired duo name EarlWolf. They perform "Couch", "Drop", "Orange Juice", and "Rusty" with Domo Genesis. On November 14, underground rapper Mach-Hommy releases a track titled "Henrietta LAX", which Sweatshirt is credited for production. On December 23, 2016, Sweatshirt plays a previously unheard track rumored to be called "Bad Acid" on his radio show Stay Inside. On January 19, 2017, experimental rapper Denmark Vessey releases an Earl Sweatshirt-produced track titled "Snowing in LA". It was later included in the deluxe version of Vessey's 2015 EP Martin Lucid Dream. ''On February 27, 2017, Sweatshirt reveals that his upcoming album is being recorded by tweeting "making the album for you rn". On April 4, 2017, rapper Mick Jenkins tweets "SENT SENT SENT" at Sweatshirt, hinting at possible future collaboration. On May 27, 2017, Sweatshirt performs a new song rumored to be titled either "Hat Trick" or "Human Error" at the Movement Festival in Detroit, Michigan. Sweatshirt later confirms on June 26, 2017 that the track was in fact yet another leak and not an official release from him. On June 4, 2017, underground rapper Tha God Fahim releases his album ''Dump Gawd, which features a Sweatshirt-produced track titled "Don't Go Summer". The same song was also included on Fahim's album Dump Goat, released September 4, 2017. On June 10, 2017, Mach-Hommy releases his album Dump Gawd: Hommy Edition. The album features three tracks produced by Sweatshirt: "Allen Iverson" featuring Heem Stogied, "DNA Swab" featuring Tha God Fahim, and "Nothin' But Net" featuring Your Old Droog. On July 21, 2017, New York rapper Mike explains how Sweatshirt has taken the role of a mentor in his career. On August 25, 2017, Wiki releases his debut studio album No Mountains in Manhattan, which features two Sweatshirt production credits; one for "Wiki New Written" and another for "Leppy Coqui". On September 2, 2017, another experimental New York-based rapper Medhane released his EP Do For Self, which contains the track "Agoura134", produced by Sweatshirt (credited as "thebe"). On September 12, Sweatshirt performs at Anaheim’s Day N Nite Festival and debuts a new, unnamed track. On October 25, 2017, Sweatshirt announces his new clothing brand called Deathworld. It was initially only available at Camp Flog Gnaw 2017 on October 28 and 29 until November 20, 2017 when Sweatshirt made the brand available on an online store. On November 1, 2017, Mach-Hommy teases a collaboration with Sweatshirt titled "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" over Twitter, but has since deleted the tweet. On November 6, Mach-Hommy released the EP Fete Des Morts AKA Dia De Las Muertos, which Sweatshirt produces six out of the seven tracks included ("Henrietta LAX", "TTFN", "Basin Bleu", "Carpe DM", "Manje Midi", and "Bride of the Water G-d"). The same day, The Alchemist takes to Twitter to tease Sweatshirt's new album, saying the album "is stupid" and that he "played mouth harp on a couple joints". On December 31, 2017, Sweatshirt confirmed that new music from him will be released in 2018, tweeting "new chunes 2018, don't think i wasn't at work". On January 3, 2018, Sweatshirt's father Keorapetse Kgositsile passed away from a short illness at the age of 79. This affected Earl a great amount, causing him to cancel that month's episode of Stay Inside as well as going inactive for the duration of the month on all social platforms except for one Instagram post of a picture of Keorapetse. On April 3, 2018, hip hop producer Cardo revealed that him and Sweatshirt had plans of doing a collaborative in 2012 and that he would like to revisit that conversation. On April 20, Denmark Vessey released his third solo EP Sun Go Nova, which Sweatshirt contributes three production credits; on "Zzzzz", "Trustfall", and "Sellout". The same day, on an Instagram live, Vessey confirmed that more music with Sweatshirt does exist and that he does have an album on the way. On April 23, North Carolina rapper Phonte revealed that Sweatshirt was originally going to be featured on his second studio album No News Is Good News ''on the track "Cry No More", but the idea was scrapped because Phonte "felt exploitative" to do that because of the recent passing of Sweatshirt's father. On April 29, Sweatshirt performed at The Smokers Club in Long Beach, California, continuing to perform new, unreleased, and unnamed songs. On May 10, 2018, Odd Future associate, photographer, and skater Sagan Lockhart shared a snippet of a scrapped The Neptunes-produced instrumental from 2012, around the time Sweatshirt was first working on his debut album ''Doris. On May 23, Chicago rapper Lucki reveals a possible remix of his song "Distant" featuring Sweatshirt, posting on his Instagram story a screenshot of a text conversation between him and Sweatshirt: On June 4, 2018, Sweatshirt cancels all dates of his European Tour and representatives of Sweatshirt release this statement: On September 21, 2018, frequent collaborator The Alchemist released the track listing to his EP Bread, which contains the track "E. Coli" featuring Earl Sweatshirt. Artistry Influences and favorite artists Sweatshirt has stated that he is influenced by MF Doom, Jay-Z, and Eminem. He has also stated several of his favorite music artists in the industry including Vince Staples, Billy Danze of M.O.P., Ka, and Mach-Hommy. Discography Studio albums * Doris ** Released: August 20, 2013 ** Label(s): Tan Cressida, Columbia Records * ''I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside'''' (originally titled [[Gnossos|''Gnossos]]) ** Released: March 23, 2015 ** Label(s): Tan Cressida, Columbia Records * TBA ** Scheduled: 2018 ** Label(s): Tan Cressida, Columbia Records Extended plays * Solace ** Released: April 28, 2015 ** Label(s): none Mixtapes * Kitchen Cutlery ''(as Sly Tendencies) ** Released: 2008 ** Label(s): none * ''Earl ** Released: March 31, 2010 ** Label(s): none Tours * Doris Tour ** October 6, 2013 - November 9, 2013 * Wearld Tour ** January 12, 2014 - March 24, 2014 * Not Redy 2 Leave Tour ** March 19, 2015 - May 24, 2015 * Ready to Leave Now Tour ** July 23, 2015 - September 19, 2015 Category:Person